Accusations of the Soul
by Ankhet
Summary: Xena/Buffy xover: Angel meets someone with more emotional baggage than him


DISCLAIMER 1: I don't own Angel. He belongs to Joss Whedon and the WB. I don't own Callisto either; she belongs to Renaissance Pictures. 

DISCLAIMER 2: This story contains violence. So if you can't handle it, don't read it. Also, if you're an Angel fan, you may not like this. 

NOTE: This takes place after Becoming in the Buffyverse and after A Necessary Evil in the Xenaverse. For all intents, the third season of Xena never happened. ------------------------ Accusations of the Soul (1/1) by Samantha McCullah 

"Sometimes you can hear their voices," the blonde woman sitting beside Angel commented. He thought she was just another loon out talking to herself, so he stayed quiet, lost in his own memories. Then she turned clear brown eyes on him. "Can't you?" 

They were sitting in a small bus station on the outskirts of some Arizona town; Angel had lost track of where he was going, where he'd been. He was just going. Running from Sunnydale, from the accusations and fear in Buffy's eyes, until he was stuck here with this *woman* ranting about her voices. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Angel replied, sliding down the bench away from her. The blonde woman followed suit until they were in the exact same positions as before. 

"Oh, but you do. You hear their screams...." She raised a hand to her temples and slowly began to rub them. He watched her, his eyes clouded with confusion and pain. "Their pleading...cries for mercy." Angel snapped his eyes away from her as his memories surged to the surface. 

He felt the surge of joy as he chased that Jenny Calendar down the school hallways, as he laughed at her screams of fear, and chuckled at the snap of her neck. He closed his eyes against the pain as he saw the hurt in Buffy's eyes after that night, *their* night, and enjoyed causing the pain in her eyes. 

"Stop it," he whispered. 

"But I can't," she replied. "I've tried but I can't stop. It never ends; just goes on and on." She stopped rubbing her head and turned to study him. Her head cocked as she smiled. "You, dearie, look like you've been through Hell." She chuckled at her little joke. Angel pushed himself to his feet violently, causing the bus bench to slide backwards. "Ah, ah, ah, temper, temper." She waggled a finger at him as he paced over to the wall. 

"Go away. Leave me alone," he muttered. 

"You can't run. You can only face it." She stared off into the distance. "Do they know you're back?" Angel's head snapped up, and he glared at her. "No, no, they don't, do they?" She rose to her feet and stalked towards him. "You crawled out of the very pit of Hades, and they don't have a clue. *She* doesn't have a clue." 

Angel grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to him roughly. "What do you know?" he hissed, his vampire face sliding into place, intending to scare her. She just laughed. 

"A lot, Angelus. I know a lot," she whispered. Angel growled and tossed her away from him. She landed in a shuddering heap, and for a second Angel thought she was crying. Then he realized she was laughing. 

"Who are you?" Angel asked. 

"A friend," she replied. 

"I don't want a friend," he replied, realizing faintly that they were parodying the same words he and Buffy spoke the first night they met. 

"Neither do I." She smiled as she leaped to her feet and rushed at him. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled his torso down as she brought her knee up to his chest. Angel felt the air he didn't need rush out of his body, and as he turned to throw a punch at her face, she did a round-about kick, and it connected with the back of his neck. 

Angel landed hard on the ground, and everything went black. ____________________ 

When he woke up, nothing had changed. He was still lying on the bus station floor, and the woman was propped up on the bench. Angel wondered fleetingly why the attendant hadn't stopped the fight, but all thoughts of that went away as he studied the woman closer. 

She'd changed clothes. Instead of the simple sundress and sandals she'd worn earlier, she know wore a strange, metal-studded, black-leather bikini. Knee high black leather boots completed the outfit. < Dominatrix Barbie. Great, > Angel thought. 

"You're awake!" she exclaimed. 

"Who are you?" 

"We've been over that, dearie," she replied. "Do we need a repeat lesson?" Angel shook his head, causing a spasm of pain to flash through his head. 

"What did you do?" 

"That's one thing about these modern times. No one can fight anymore. What I did to you wouldn't have even phased some of the best warlords of my time." 

"Your time?" 

"You're trying to figure me out?!" She grabbed his shirt and pulled him up to eye level. "I don't like that," she hissed. Angel slammed his fist into her unprotected stomach; as she doubled over, she pivoted, pulled a dagger out from somewhere in her outfit. 

< Where does she hide her weapons? > he wondered, just before the dagger plunged into his stomach. He glanced down at the blood welling up from around the wound. 

"That's where she stabbed you, isn't it?" Angel's eyes clouded with pain. "Isn't it?" she demanded, twisting the dagger and earning a grunt of pain from him. He nodded. "Do you know what pain is?" she whispered. He glanced at her as the memories once again rose up. 

His pleasure at watching Buffy sleep, knowing when she woke up she'd know he'd been there and be afraid. His joy over killing Willow's fish and leaving them so she'd find them. 

"You don't know," the woman commented, dragging him out of his reflection. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his head back. "Pain is having the screams of your mother and sister constantly echo through your head. I watched my family burn. Can you say that? 

"I once disemboweled children, trying to make it stop. To make the voices stop, to make sure I never heard *her* battle cry again. It didn't work; they just got louder and louder until nothing could drown them out. Do you know what that's like?" She yanked his head back again. "Do you?" Angel grunted in pain. "Didn't think so." She pulled the dagger out of his stomach and pressed it to his throat. "Go home, Angel. Go back to your love. You've begun to bore me." She sliced the dagger across his throat causing his blood to spill out and down to the dirty station floor. ___________________ 

Callisto stood over the fallen vampire, still holding the dagger in a bloody hand, like some strange parody of Lady Macbeth. Silently, using her thumb and forefinger, she wiped the excess blood off her knife, but she made sure some blood still clung to the dagger to serve as a reminder. 

Callisto stared up at the full moon. "Soon. Very soon," she whispered as she dropped the dagger onto Angel's back. Then she was gone, disappearing in a flash of fire. ____________________ 

"NO!" Angel screamed as he woke up. Struggling to his feet, he pushed himself off the bus station bench. "Just a dream," he muttered, his hand sliding to his throat. It was unscarred. 

Just then over the loudspeaker, "Bus #1459, to Sunnydale, California, is now boarding. All passengers proceed to the ticket window." Angel lifted his bus ticket and was surprised to see that it was to Sunnydale.  his mind race, until he noticed something on the floor. 

As Angel lifted the dagger, he found himself repeating, "Only a dream. Only a dream." He wiped some of the blood off and lifted it to his nose. He inhaled and then dropped the dagger. It was his blood. 

"Sir? You're the only customer here right now. And you're going to Sunnydale, so get movin'," the attendant ordered from his window. 

Not knowing why, he headed to the gate, and repeated for the last time, "It was only a dream." 

< Right? > 

*FIN* 


End file.
